Officials looking into vandalism of two cemeteries

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) -- Residents of a small Cherokee County community are offering a $5,000 reward for information about who overturned 127 headstones and damaged the chapel door at an historical graveyard.

Vandals hit the Caney Cemetery around Oct. 14, authorities said.

Investigators for both Cherokee and Adair counties have suspects in mind, but no arrests have been made.

Gravesites in the cemetery located in a community called Tailholt date back to the Trail of Tears and possibly back to the late 18th century.

Three males and a female are considered suspects in the crime, but law officers do not have enough evidence to arrest them, Cherokee County sheriff's investigator Danny Lewis said Thursday.

Authorities do not believe the crime was motivated by racial anger, although many of those buried there are of American Indian heritage.

"It was just a random, macho-type of thing," Lewis said. "It looks like a bunch of drunks showing off."

Members of cemetery keeper John Sanders' family are buried there, including his great-grandfather James Sanders, a Cherokee Indian who arrived from Georgia in the 1830s.

"My folks came here on the Trail of Tears," said Sanders, who has been Caney Cemetery keeper for nearly 20 years.

Adair County investigators also are looking into Caney Cemetery case because 10 to 12 headstones at Mulberry Cemetery, only 12 miles to the north, also were vandalized around the same time, Lewis said.

Most of the headstones at Caney have been repaired and replaced, Sanders said. However, three or four were stolen and cannot be found, he said.